8 May, 2002
Top 10, Book 1 (2000, 208 pp)
Top 10, Book 2 (2002, 144 pp)
Alan Moore (Writer)
Gene Ha (Artist)
Zander Cannon (Layout)
Reading these books (comprising all twelve issues of the comic), I got the impression that when Alan Moore thought the series up, he said to himself, "Well, I like superheroes. I like cop shows. Why don't I combine them?" In my opinion, it worked out very well. (But, of course, I like cop shows and superheroes.)
The book is set in the city of Neopolis, which is populated entirely by "science beings"-- a term which encompasses super-powered humans, humans with super-powered gadgets, robots, aliens, mutants, and other comic book types. The main characters are police at Neopolis' central precinct, the "Top 10" of the title.
Anybody who's watched a cop show knows the character types: the rookie fresh out of the Academy, the gruff veteran she's partnered with, the fatherly captain, and so forth. However, Moore goes beyond the archetypes, and adds in scenes and situations which humanize each of the main characters: Robocop-esque Irma Geddon at home with her kids, techno-cowboy Duane helping out his mom, the religious beliefs of Lieutenant Peregrine (born-again Christian) and Detective King Peacock (Satanist). Plotwise, there's a combination of single-issue events (a domestic dispute, the murder of Baldur, a gnarly traffic accident, busting Santa Claus for creating a public nuisance) and long-running investigations (a serial killer, the murder of a drug dealer, tracking down an invisible groper).
All of the main plotlines are resolved in these two books, but there are some loose ends which are not tied up. For example, there are hints that Smax has a very interesting background, but we never find out what that is. The series was originally published 1999-2001, so I don't think there's going to be any more of it, which would be fine, except for those loose ends.
As with many of Moore's works, Top 10 is filled with visual details, pop-cultural references, and in-jokes. For example, there's a panel where a gang of Smurfs is robbing a passed-out drunk. There's X-men and Justice League graffitti. The Power Puff Girls fly by at one point. I'm pretty sure that Alan Moore himself appears in a Hitchcockian cameo. Since I am not a super-hero comics fanatic, I'm pretty sure I missed the majority of them, but even the bits I noticed were fun. (A fan has compiled a list of annotations which point a lot of them out, but it's more fun to look for them oneself. It's kind of like Where's Waldo?)
The art, typically for this line (America's Best Comics) is supurb, and the style suits the subject matter perfectly. You can see samples on Gene Ha's web site, linked above.